Gas voucher company looks to step in while Pinellas one under investigation

As investigators continue their review of a Pinellas County company's free gas card program, another firm is looking to take its place — one run by a man with his own history of financial schemes, tax troubles and complaints.

Troy Warren, 49, of Mesa, Ariz., and his BBZ Resource Management company have been flooding e-mail boxes in Florida and elsewhere with offers for a gas and grocery program much like that of the Largo-Clearwater based Tidewater Marketing Global Consultants.

Tidewater is under state control and the subject of a criminal investigation for deceptive business practices. Today a state-appointed receiver is expected to issue his initial report about Tidewater, a company run by Seminole businesswoman Crystal M. Clark.

Tidewater has failed to deliver thousands of gas cards promised to consumers throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. BBZ says, unlike Tidewater, it delivers the promised product.

But Warren, vice president of BBZ, has made promises before that he had trouble delivering on from companies he ran in Arizona, Florida and Nevada. Some of his past business deals resulted in:

• A lawsuit by MasterCard International in 1991 that accused Warren and more than a dozen other defendants of taking millions from consumers through false offers of low-rate credit cards under a company they ran, called Listworld. The case was settled and dismissed.

Listworld filed bankruptcy and reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which shut the operation down for deceptive practices.

• A bankruptcy filing that left Warren with a judgment for $1.9 million that he was declared responsible for in an order in 2006.

• An order by the Arizona Corporation Commission that Warren pay $20,000 in restitution to investors for selling stock he did not register for a charitable Internet business, FreeFundRaisingPrograms.com Inc.

• The Better Business Bureau gave Warren an "F" for his failed SearchBigDaddy.com Internet products and services business because of complaints, failure to respond to complaints and lack of business background.

Warren also has been sued at least five times for failing to pay state and federal taxes in the tens of thousands of dollars, from the early 1990s to 2005.

Through the office manager at BBZ, Warren declined to comment and referred all questions to his lawyer, Peter Gorski.

Gorski did not comment about Warren's past business dealings but said BBZ's gas program is different from Tidewater's and is legitimate.

"There are facial similarities," Gorski said, dismissing any comparison between Tidewater and BBZ. "We don't know what (Tidewater's) business plan is."

Gorski would not explain BBZ's business plan.

Tidewater sued Warren in U.S. District Court in Tampa in December. Tidewater accused Warren of unfair competition and counterfeiting, among other things, for "copying, distributing and misappropriating Tidewater's business information."

In a response filed Thursday, BBZ denied all of Tidewater's allegations.

BBZ's gas and grocery program is less than a year old, so it's unclear how well it works.

The strategy is the same as Tidewater's:

• Consumers receive a voucher from a retailer after a purchase or as an incentive for just visiting a store.

• Each consumers must register his voucher and send in $100 worth of receipts for gas or groceries each month. In turn, he receives a $25 gift card until the full value of the voucher is reached.

Salespeople for BBZ have been trying to coax brokers and marketing companies hurt by Tidewater's operations to switch to their vouchers.

One of BBZ's brokers e-mailed a press release about its program, stating, "Gas and Grocery Headquarters, the leading provider of gas and grocery certificates, is looking to help companies that fell victim to a now defunct gas rebate program based in Largo, Florida.

"It's an unfortunate situation … but we can help companies resolve the situation without having to come up with the full value of the certificates themselves and lose money," the release states.

The failure of Tidewater's gas voucher program could cost retailers millions of dollars if they must make up for the undelivered gas cards. Retailers from tire retailers and travel agencies to car dealerships and electronics stores used the program.

Hymie Orlin, one of BBZ's representatives through fuelandgroceryincentives.com, said his company is picking up Tidewater's clients.

"We've taken over a lot of their accounts because of their issues," Orlin said. "We have a very solid program."

Orlin has been trying to sell BBZ's gas and grocery vouchers to Don Dominguez, who as a tire and tire incentive broker bought Tidewater's vouchers only to discover the company was not paying customers what they were owed. Dominguez has been pressing retailers to beware the gas voucher programs and complained to the state Attorney General's Office to take action against Tidewater.

"Several of the dealers that I'm associated with were approached by representatives of BBZ," Dominguez said. "And then I went on to investigate who BBZ was and what program they intended to replace (Tidewater's) program with, and it appears to me to be a very similar program."

Dominguez has refused to participate in BBZ's program.

Kevin Jackson of the Hillsborough Consumer Protection Agency said retailers and consumers should carefully consider getting involved in any program without understanding what is being offered and by whom.

"Someone has to look at it and say, 'Man, this doesn't look right' or wait for some successful history," Jackson said. "Someone has got to ask some questions."

Times researcher Shirl Kennedy contributed to this report. Ivan Penn can be reached at ipenn@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2332.

The article didn't mention Search Big Daddy Com, but Troy Warren operated the search engine scam

http://searchbigdaddy.com

where he got people to pay him money to be come key word managers and then he never paid them their commissions.

The Search Big Daddy business uses the same office as BBZ Resource Management. They are both located at:

827 W. Grove Ave., Suite 100
Mesa, AZ 85210

Some other addresses used by Troy Warren and his Search Big Daddy group are:

Troy Warren SBD offices
Asystems Group Inc. DBA Search Big Daddy
77 W. Chicago St., Suite 2
Chandler, AZ 85225
(480)214-4030

Troy Warren SBD offices
Asystems Group Inc.
951 E Desert Inn
Chandler, AZ
85249-3991

Troy Warren SBD offices
Asystems Group Inc. DBA as Search Big Daddy
908 W Chandler Blvd Blding D
Chandler, Az
85225

Troy Warren SBD offices
1839 S. Alma School Rd., Suite 200
Mesa, AZ 85210

Troy Warren SBD phones

(480)214-4030
(480)786-5478
(480)786-LIST
(480)393-7124 fax

The Better Business Bureau is warning consumers about BBZ Resource Management in Mesa after receiving complaints from 40 states about its gas/grocery gift card voucher program.

BBZ claims to help businesses increase sales and retain customers by offering an opportunity to advertise free gas and grocery gift cards.

The Bureau says BBZ hires brokers from the United States and Canada to sell the program in which the companies purchase gift card vouchers to offer to their customers. Complaints filed with Better Business Bureau stem from consumers’ failed attempts to turn the vouchers into redeemable gas and grocery gift cards.

BBZ recently became known as Incentive International. Repeated calls to its Mesa office went unanswered Wednesday.

“We have received over 225 complaints about this company from consumers nationwide who have not received their cards or have other issues with the company,” BBB Operations Director Carrie Ann Lorimer said. “More than 100 of those complaints are in still in the dispute resolution process.”

In addition, some BBZ brokers have contacted the Better Business Bureau with liability concerns after receiving complaints from businesses and consumers about delays and non-receipt of the cards.

The bureau said in a release Wednesday that the consumer watchdog group has reason to believe BBZ Resource Management is run by Troy Warren, who the BBB says has been linked to questionable business dealings in the past.

Over the past 30 days, BBB has received thousands of requests by phone and Web from individuals wanting to read the company’s report. BBZ Resource Management has responded to some complaints, yet the company has an F rating with the bureau due to the serious nature of some complaints and failure to correct the underlying reason for the complaints.

The majority of complaints concern:


Non-receipt of gift cards after following the company’s instructions.
Delay of up to 20 weeks before receiving gift cards.
Received gift card not activated.
Received gift card is for a gas station outside of consumer’s area.

Retailers participating in BBZ’s voucher program advertise a $100 to $500 free gas or grocery gift card with purchases. Consumers who make a purchase from a participating retailer receive a voucher that instructs them to register online to receive the free gift cards. Consumers must then purchase $100 dollars worth of gas a month and send receipts in to BBZ before the end of that month. Once consumers follow those instructions they are suppose to receive their first $25 card. Thereafter they are supposed to receive $25 each month with a $100 gas purchase until they have received the advertised amount.

“Essentially there are three groups being misled in this scenario, the business, consumer and the broker,” BBB President Matthew Fehling said. “It’s unfortunate that honest businesses have gotten caught up in this situation and in turn are losing the trust of their customers. It’s equally as frustrating for the consumers who thought they were making a purchase to redeem gas or groceries and end up empty handed.”

Better Business Bureau has connected BBZ Resource Management to the following Web sites:


http://www.freefuelcenter.com
http://www.fuelpaycheck.com
http://www.freegrocerycenter.com
http://www.freegas4business.com
http://www.gasandgrocerydepot.com
http://www.petroleumpromotions.com
http://www.gaspromo500.com
http://www.freefuelmary.com
http://www.saveonhealthcare.org
http://www.claimyourgas.com
http://www.theworldsoneperfectbusiness.com
http://www.bbzrm.com
http://www.claimyourmerchandise.com
http://www.claimyourgroceries.com
http://freefuelnationwide.com
http://fuelpromos.com/main/request

Although the company denies affiliation, the duplicate privacy policy on each site connects back to BBZ.

Consumers who wish to file a complaint can go to www.arizonabbb.org or the Arizona Attorney General’s office at www.agaz.gov.

Troy Warren's BBZ Resource Management changes it's name to Incentive International.

Troy explained that everybody in the world knows that Search Big Daddy and BBZ Resource Management are a bunch of con artists who will steal your money. We need a fresh new name to help us steal money from unsuspecting consumers.

Check our our new improved web site at

http://incentiveinternational.com

which is just a re-incarnation of all the other flim flam customers web sites created by Troy Warren.

Troy Warren says "There is a sucker born every minute and those suckers helping me pay for my 4,000 square foot home in Chandler, Arizona"

Troy Warren seems to like Wyoming corporations.

He has several of them. YOu can search for them
at this web site of the Wyoming Corporation Commission
at this URL

https://wyobiz.wy.gov/Ecommerce/SearchResultNew.aspx


Filing Number 2005-000490060

ASYSTEMS GROUP, INC.
109 E 17th St # 25
Cheyenne, WY 82001 USA

President Troy Warren
Director Paul Cohen


Filing Number 2004-000466462

BBZ Resource Management, Inc.
827 W. Grove Ave. Ste 100
Mesa, AZ 85210
USA

Director Denise Barlow
827 W. Grove
Mesa, AZ

Registered Agent:
Wyoming Corporate Services, Inc.
2710 Thomes Ave
Cheyenne, WY 82001 USA


Filing Number 2009-000570176

Incentive International
827 W Grove Ave Ste 100
Mesa, AZ 85210 USA




Aweber Communications
http://www.aweber.com/

Uhhhh...that is not a 'photo'...that is what is commonly as an avatar

Is his real name Ponsi Troy Warren? Or perhaps he is a relative of the great Arizona land fraud flim falm con man Ned Warren?

The way Troy Warren appears to operate is to get customers to give him money in advance in exchange for promises to pay the customer even more money at some future date.

Once Troy Warren has the customer’s money he starts to pay off some of his obligations to the customer. That way the customer thinks Troy Warren is an honest person and is going to keep his side of the deal.

But then Troy Warren flakes out and stops paying the customer the money Troy Warren owes the customer.

Since it is a business deal the customer can’t claim he was robbed and call the cops. The only way the customer can get his money back is to sue Troy Warren in a civil court and demand their money back.

And since Troy Warren operates his business and gets his customers in places like Florida, New Jersey, New York, Wyoming, Maine, Canada, England and even India it is simply too expensive for most of Troy Warren’s customers to sue him in court.

What are the products Troy Warren sells his customers? Well as I said they all require the customer to give Troy Warren a bunch of money up front and then over time Troy Warren gives the customer his money back. And more often then not Troy Warren flakes out and doesn’t give the customer his money back.

When I worked for Troy Warren at his Asystems Group Inc which did business as Search Big Daddy he sold customer a product called “Key Word Managers”. The customer would give $1,200 to Troy Warren and in exchange Troy Warren would promise the customers a cut of the profits made off of that “Key Word”.

Troy Warren started selling his “car wrap auto ads” when I worked for him at Search Big Daddy.

I suspect Troy would get a business to pay him to run a “car wrap auto ad”. I am not sure how much he charged or exactly how it worked.

Troy Warren would then find a person with a nice car and agree to pay the person $80 a month if they agreed to have their car warped with the ad and drove 100 miles or more a month.

If Troy Warren operated his “car wrap auto ads” like he operated all his other businesses he probably made a few of the $80 a month payments to the customer and then flaked out and stopped paying the customer.

Troy Warren probably then pocked the rest of the money he was pay from the business that ran the “car wrap auto ad”.

From what I read in the papers Troy Warrens gas refund business operated pretty much the same way.

Troy Warren would charge customers money to buy a refund card which gave them a $25 a month refund in cash if they bought $100 worth of gas for a year.

After the customer bought the refund card they would be given the first one or two $25 refunds, but then Troy Warren would flake out and stop making the payments!

Troy I have to hand it to you, as a con man and thief you’re a frigging genius! But as a human being you’re a complete asshole! And I remember how you treat some of the people that worked for you at Search Big Daddy and your really are an asshole!